child with down syndrome diagnose with aspergers,

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how do this make you feel. I know they say people with down syndrome always have mental retardation and people with asperger have high iq's

down syndrome and aspergers

I have difficulty understanding how a child with Down Syndrome can also receive an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis.

From what I've read, all DS children (non-Mosaic) have intellectual disabilities to various degrees (<70), whereas to get an AS diagnosis your IQ has to be 70+.

The only exception I can think of is if that woman's child had Mosaic Down Syndrome, in which not all of the child's cells have Trisomy 21, in which a milder phenotype is expressed instead, thus causing most of the Mosaic DS children to have an IQ of 70 - 110.

Well, though technically the diagnosis should be PDD-NOS, I think diagnosing Asperger's in this case makes more sense than diagnosing autism. If her language and self-help skill development is typical for Down syndrome, it can be inferred that there are no speech delays due to autism, and that implies Asperger Syndrome.

If you are going to insist on having Asperger's be a separate category at all, I don't think that IQ should come into it; having Asperger's be a specific category of autism without speech delay specifically due to the autism would make more sense than diagnosing autism whenever there's language delay--even when the language delay is the result of an overall developmental delay. Cases like this--where the IQ is low for some reason (like Down's and Fragile X, notably), but the language and general intellectual development are on the schedule expected for that particular diagnosis--it would make more sense to diagnose Asperger's than classic autism.

The correct diagnosis in this case is probably PDD-NOS, just as it is in most such complicated situations, because the doctor can't correctly diagnose autism in someone whose speech isn't delayed any more than what would be expected for a DS child, but can't diagnose Asperger's because there's a speech delay and developmental delay present.

Personally, if it were up to me and I weren't allowed to merge the spectrum, but had to keep it separate, I would have "Asperger's" be the cases where communicative speech developed at either the typical time or the time expected from the child's global developmental delay. Communicative speech is a significant part of autism and does change how a child is educated. But that would not change the fact that in adulthood, those who developed speech on time are functionally hard or impossible to distinguish from those who had delays. So I really prefer to call it all "autism" and leave it at that.

I don't think you get what I'm saying--I'm saying that instead of Asperger's being thought of as "smart, early-talking austistic," it should simply be "early-talking autistic". I.e., remove the IQ criterion entirely; remove the developmental delay criterion entirely; diagnose Asperger's in cases where Down syndrome is present if the speech development is not delayed beyond what the DS would account for. The way we've got it right now, it doesn't make any sense to exclude those with developmental delay from Asperger's even if they haven't got language development lagging behind their other skills. Because we require no developmental delay AND normal speech development, the diagnosis of classic autism rather than Asperger's is meaningless--there's no way to tell what, exactly, that person's symptoms are, because you can't tell whether the delay is global or whether it's language-specific. If on the other hand you had classic autism for language-specific delay (with or without global delay) and Asperger's for lack of language-specific delay (with or without global delay), then that would actually mean something. But, the way it is, it doesn't mean anything.

It really wouldn't surprise me if the doctor who diagnosed that particular girl noted that she had autism but her language development was normal for someone with Down syndrome, so he didn't want to diagnose classic autism--if she hadn't had DS causing a developmental delay, she would have been diagnosed with Asperger's.

IQ means nothing for a diagnosis of AS. USUALLY it is average or higher, but that doesn't stop someone having LD with AS. A lot of people with AS even have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia and dyspraxia (among others). I have a low-average IQ but I don't think I am particularly stupid or anything, just that my learning style is different from others.

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

People with Down syndrome, though usually they have low IQ, do not always. The child might have an average IQ and typical language development, no delay in self-help skills, etc etc, and AS might be appropriate. Not likely, but possible.

There's no IQ requirement for a Down's Syndrome diagnosis. There's no behavior requirements at all. So, what's true of most need not be true of all.

I'm inclined to think it's possible for someone with Down's Syndrome to meet the criteria of Asperger's quoted below. Not likely, I think, but not impossible.

"E.There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood."

At the same time, I also agree with Ettina, in the post just above mine (based on what I've read).

And, it's not at all universal that people with Asperger's have high IQ. Not because the diagnostic criteria don't directly mention IQ (I'll avoid that debate), but because there's a whole large range between high IQ and "significant delay in cognitive development or in the development".

Here's a couple articles I found regarding Down's Syndrome and autism, for those who are interested.

http://www.ndss.org/index.php?view=arti ... &showall=1

http://www.theupsideofdowns.org/down-sy ... m-disorder

I think there should be autism subtypes, but not the ones we currently have. We should have subtypes where research has inedicated that the presence or absence of a certain trait is significant to proper education or handling. Such as visuospatial thinker as opposed to nonverbal learning disability (extremely verbal thinker). Or autism with catatonia, because they're more susceptible to nasty side effects from certain medications.